Charley Trippi

Pro Ball

Transcript from "Pro Ball"

So I had a fabulous career. I earned a lot of good things from it and, of course, I was paid very well. I know when I went into professional football, the perception back then was you know, if you could get a good contract back then, you were very fortunate. But it so happened when I negotiated my contract, I was negotiating with a new football league that was organizing, the American Football League. They had two different pro organizations, and, of course, I was negotiating between both of them. I was negotiating with the New York Yankees and the Cardinals. I went to New York to discuss the contract, and I was kind of a little apprehensive about their dealings, because I was in the market then to play both professional baseball and football … so in 1947 Earl Mann came to see me play, and signed me up to a contract. He gave me a $10,000 bonus. He says, “Charley, this is the most money I have ever given a ball player to play in AA Baseball. “ He says, “Ya know, it is going to be a lot different playing then you had playing in college baseball.” I said, “Mr. Mann, you can’t give me enough money for me to go to Atlanta and embarrass myself.” I says, “I am going there because I know I can play, because I played in the service with major leaguers and I competed on the same level with them and did quite well.” I says, “I am signing with you because I know I can play,” and that I did. I hit .335 for him, and the next year he wanted to sell me to the Boston Red Sox. But I had such a lucrative contract playing football, I didn’t want to give that up. So when I signed up with the Cardinals, I signed a four-year contract for $100,000. Back then, that was way out of line. People didn’t realize that you could make that much money playing professional football, but today I am embarrassed to say I only made $25,000, because now they are making millions. I never dreamed that anybody playing professional football would ever make a million dollars, which is occurring today. So...